There's a reason more people don't gravitate towards the trades, and it's not because of teachers or guidance counselors. It's because it's usually pretty physically demanding (and sometimes dangerous) work in often uncomfortable conditions. And even if you're OK with those things, most trades still require skills, talent, and intelligence that not everyone is capable of.
Thinking that anyone can be suited for trades work and they're just too brainwashed to realize what they're missing out on is as tone deaf as people telling out of work coal miners to "learn to code".
And honestly, one of the biggest obstacles is some of the people in the trades themselves. Just like with police or prison guards, the jobs are sometimes self-selecting in terms of the type of personalities they tend to attract. If you want to attract more people to the field, then changing the whole attitude and atmosphere is one place to start. A lot of journeymen/companies are great for apprentices to work under, but way too many have awful safety standards (this is particularly bad in residential construction), tolerate hazing and verbal abuse of apprentices, and seem to think that screaming at employees is a great way to motivate them. I know multiple people who started as apprentices or pre-apprentices and ended up changing fields because they couldn't stand that atmosphere.
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